The presets are still being tuned/worked on. Gabriel did a major overhaul in 3.95.

LAME4 will need completely new presets/tunings:

QUOTE (takehiro)

LAME4 is now in the late-alpha stage. One of its final goal is to define the goal smile.gifCurrent LAME4's Main goal is "destory all the obstacles to improve the quality/speed, which is made by OLD code"."Improving quality" itself is not current goal, but "to lay the foundations for it" is the goal.Maybe after archiving this goal, I will do the next goal (improving quality by tuning the parameters). That will be beta stages' work, after Christmas or the new year.

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"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

It seems that (alt-)presets are accepted by the recent versions only for backward compatibility. The developers are trying to stay away from presets, and are going back to the good old simple options like -V and -b.

With Lame4, this attitude/tendency is even more obvious. Here is the "--preset help" of lame4a11:

QUOTE

The --preset switches are obsoleted and discouraged to use.All the presets are only alias to the simple VBR/ABR/CBR mode

It seems that (alt-)presets are accepted by the recent versions only for backward compatibility. The developers are trying to stay away from presets, and are going back to the good old simple options like -V and -b.

With Lame4, this attitude/tendency is even more obvious. Here is the "--preset help" of lame4a11:

QUOTE

The --preset switches are obsoleted and discouraged to use.All the presets are only alias to the simple VBR/ABR/CBR mode

hmm, I'm not sure if this is a good idea...why should people bother with switches if they can just type --preset standard ? I know, it will still work, but why is it deprecated

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--alt-presets are there for a reason! These other switches DO NOT work better than it, trust me on this.LAME + Joint Stereo doesn't destroy 'Stereo'

hmm, I'm not sure if this is a good idea...why should people bother with switches if they can just type --preset standard ? I know, it will still work, but why is it deprecated

QUOTE (Gabriel @ Dec 16 2004, 01:54 PM)

Hmm, why should people bother with --preset standard when they can just type -V2 ?

As far as I have understood it, the latest version of Lame implements Dibrom's famous code tweaks on all CBR/ABR/VBR switches. Until recently, these code tweaks were available on only two VBR modes (standard and extreme). The good point is that now you can use them on all the VBR scale, and Roberto's very quoted listening test has showed the potential around 128kbps.

Hmm, why should people bother with --preset standard when they can just type -V2 ?

I've never bothered too much with all that -V stuff...so what would -V1 be? --preset extreme? Is there a -V0 ? I rather find it confusing...since there is also a -q2 switch etc...anyway, please get rid of the -k switch. I still can't figure our when this could become useful...it will rather hurt quality...just imagine CBR 128 combined with it

It actually makes sense.You don't have to use presets anymore. Just specify a quality level as you do with Vorbis/Musepack.I agree that the meaning of the -q switch is confusing, but if you want to play safe just don't use it.Rather than seeing -V n has the end of the presets see it as their 'natural' evolution.

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"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

Simply because I can only state my own opinion. Audio encoders quality is not something that can be mathematically proven. It can only be estimated, so there is no definitive answer, only recommendations.

IMO remembering numbers is easier than to remember preset names. Also if you only use the named presets, then you have no way to use the low bitrates vbr modes...

this is true when --preset standard was called --fsdfmsdfmds, instead. However, with the preset names I simply write what LAME should do. You are right about the other presets though...they can't all have names.

As I've said before, -Vsomething is confusing since there is also a -qsomething, both switches have something to do with quality. Maybe the v switch should be called preset instead. So for --preset standard you'd type --preset2

This post has been edited by Jojo: Dec 18 2004, 17:55

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--alt-presets are there for a reason! These other switches DO NOT work better than it, trust me on this.LAME + Joint Stereo doesn't destroy 'Stereo'

IMO remembering numbers is easier than to remember preset names. Also if you only use the named presets, then you have no way to use the low bitrates vbr modes...

Absolutely agree. Numbers make particular sense for MP3 because you have format-dictated top (320kbps) and bottom limits (32kbps), whereas Vorbis -q 10 is 500kbps nominal though the container could support 1411.2kbps like a WAV file.

However, I would prefer the -V presets to follow in Vorbis and Musepacks' footsteps, i.e. higher numbers = better quality. But the current system is well-entrenched in people's minds.